The Other's Gold: Part 2 - The Missing

I mentioned this to Christine a couple of times since we've been back:  It's a really nice feeling to be missed.

Missing things is not necessarily a good feeling; when you see things on Facebook or via e-mail, birthdays, anniversaries, parties and such, you get that squishy feeling inside as if you want to distort the laws of nature to pop in on the party and say, "Surprise!"  Maybe I'm the only one that daydreams about that.

In the missing of people and the missing of events, we find a nice surprise happening to our memories.  Slowly the ones we miss lose their sharp edges, they lose their idiosyncrasies (or idiots sing crazies) that make us want to pull out our eyebrows one follicle at a time, like plucking a duck's pin feathers when you don't have a blow torch at hand.  When we miss people, we forget that there were things that drove us to distraction (that's a very Australian thing to write) and likely, we weren't altogether easy on their emotional highway either.

Time doesn't just heal wounds, it puts Bandaids on interpersonal papercuts and sutures in relational lacerations.  As a pastor at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Rockford, Illinois, I made so many mistakes, lit too many fires under bridges, that unless a church like that was entirely wrapped up in Jesus' words in the Lord's Prayer "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us," I would have failed miserably.  But always, they helped me grow as a pastor and even when I made mistakes in sermons, missed the first part of worship because of a clock failure on Daylight Savings or said something unintentionally inappropriate, they found a way to hone in on forgiveness in the midst of remembering how I messed up.

OSLC was (is) a fantastic church.

Sunday morning dawned fair.  Elsa and I had spent the night at our friends' house.  David is one of my very good friends in the world and Elsa's friend, Mary, is his daughter.  The girls stayed up talking while David and I went to the liquor store.  That sounds bad, I guess, but the liquor store is actually a really nice place with lounge furniture, soft Christmas music and a friendly tender who, after we bought a bottle of wine, allowed us to uncork it and talk for a few hours reminiscing about the past and wondering about the future.

Anyway, David is a golden friend - but another story entirely.  Elsa and I walked past our old house on the way to church; it has lost it's shine in the present and only retains some amazing memories that we still have of it.  We kind of walked past it with blinders on only stopping to look at the front yard where our beautiful little tree still thrusts upwards.  Then, we passed our neighbor's house - Merv and Ruth who used to watch our girls.  I wish everyone had neighbors like Merv and Ruth.  Sometimes when I'd get home from work, Merv would be on top of my house blowing the leaves from my gutters.  Well, maybe not everyone could put up with coming home and finding your neighbor on your roof.  When he and I were together, something was sure to go wrong.  Especially when I got my thumb near a hydraulic wood splitter.  Once again, a different story.

Then, slowly walking up the streets, past houses of people we've long since forgotten their names; we only knew the buildings, the trees, the cracks in the street that still seem to trip us on the memories of late afternoon summertime strolls. 

Over the last hill we saw the gigantic church where I used to be a pastor.  It's brick façade makes the place seem solid, and it's front windows allow a large perspective into the worship life of the church where the gargantuan organ is perched and the choir loft holds the young and old voices that brought so much good music into the sanctuary.

We entered through the front doors and were welcomed by all the 'old' stalwarts - the same ushers were greeting people and they welcomed me like a long lost brother.  It was amazing to be missed.  Then, through the end of the service, we went up to communion and there was a whisper as we walked by people, pointing; all those people that wrapped up God's good wishes for us and sent us to the other side of the planet were smiling, and at that point, I felt immensely blessed to be part of their missing.

After the service, it was such a pleasure to see the young couples I'd married procreating and enlarging the church membership one child at a time.  We met in the social hall where it seemed like a tidal wave of church members wanted to hear how Christine and I were doing -  it was like a receiving line at a wedding except that Christine was on one side of the room and I was on the other.  At the end of an hour, many of those in attendance went dutifully into the sanctuary for the next service, but we stayed to talk to a few friends outside.

That's when she showed up.  Mackenzie.

In my last year in Rockford, one of the last babies I visited in the hospital was Mackenzie.  She was there for a very long time because she was born incredibly prematurely - she weighed, if I remember correctly, just under two pounds.  As big as my hand, or, I guess, as small as it.  When she finally came home from the hospital, I drove out to the west side of Rockford; it seemed like a long time because I was anxious to see them again, and when I arrived, I was welcomed as an 'old' friend.  We were going to talk about baptism for Mackenzie.  She was such a beautiful kid.

Five years later, in between services, around the corner comes a beautiful blonde girl, using a walker, pushing her way towards our table.  At first I didn't recognize her because, of course, little girls tend to change over five years.  She has thick glasses and a smile as wide as Illinois.  Her mother pushed her towards me and Mackenzie dragged her walker over and that's when I realized that a miracle was five years old. 

I sat on the bench in the back of the social hall just outside the library and she crawled up right beside me, put her hand on mine and began to stroke it as if it were the most wonderful Persian cat.  I asked her questions and her bright eyes and mind lit up with quick answers.  She had never met me before but it was as if she was a golden, old soul.  As her mother came to collect her, she looked up at me with those big eyes magnified ten times, put her arms around my neck and said, "I love you."

She's a heartbreaker, all right.  A man could live a thousand years and not find a pure spirit like Mackenzie.  She was absolutely amazing.  I could have stayed and talked with her for hours, found out about her dreams and frustrations, listened to her tell stories of her parents - and all the time I felt my heart beat with pride:  "Hey everyone, I baptized this one!"  And as Mackenzie pushed her self away and waved, I thought of all the kids I'd baptized at OSLC, all the weddings that I was part of, all the young adults that shaped how I view family ministry, all the choir members who sang, the librarians who read to my daughters, youth who simply called me 'Reid' and then proceeded to break my teeth while playing ice hockey.  All this time in one place. 

They're still my family even though I don't call it home anymore.

It was fun to be missed; it is painful to miss them, but somehow God continues to move us all, or to keep us put, as he needs for the greater good of his Spirit in the world.  And at each place we stay or go, we sing the song:

Make new friends but keep the old.  One is silver and the other's gold.